


Eat, Snip, Love

by Redrikki



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Cooking, Family Feels, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 23:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11543061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: Ahsoka can't remember the last time she had a home cooked meal. Anakin and Padmé are determined to change that.





	Eat, Snip, Love

“Are you serious?” Anakin jerked his head up from the engine he was repairing. “You’ve never had a home cooked meal?”

Ahsoka shrugged. “I guess I must have at some point.” Maybe back when she lived with her parents on Shili? Whatever. She didn’t see why it was so important. “The Jedi Temple is my home and I eat there all the time. That’s basically the same thing, right?”

Anakin screwed up his face like he’d bitten something sour. “They are _not_ the same thing.” He turned back to the engine. “Hand me that number four hydrospanner, will you?”

Ahsoka fished the one he wanted out of the tool kit and handed it over. “Well, I don’t see how it’s any different.”

Sometimes her master got these strange ideas. Take ship repairs, for example. _Resolute_ had a full compliment of mechanics and technicians, but Anakin insisted on doing all the maintenance on his starfighter himself. Any other Jedi would have considered it a waste of time, but not him. A pilot, he always said, needed to know their ship inside and out, and maintenance and repairs were the fastest way to learn. He kind of had a point and doing repairs together was pretty fun, but it was still strange. Ahsoka had a sneaking suspicion that this home cooked meal business was about to become another one of his strange things.

Anakin strained, trying to wrench open a valve. “They just—” He broke off with a grunt. The valve wouldn’t budge. He made a frustrated noise and threw the hydrospanner to the deck. “They just are. Okay?” He pressed his greasy hand to his forehead and made a visible effort to calm down. Ahsoka could sense his emotions swirling around him, but she couldn’t even guess why he was so upset.

Ahsoka reached out to him. “Master…” She trailed off, unsure of what to say.

He lowered his hands. “Home is where you feel…good..safe…loved,” Anakin said after a long moment. “A good home cooked meal reminds you of that.”

Ahsoka shook her head. Food was food. Sometimes it tasted good, sometimes bad, but all of it was just fuel. No matter who made it or where, it couldn’t make someone _feel_ anything, except maybe sick to their stomach. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry, Snip.” He picked up the hydrospanner and flashed her a tight smile. “When we get back to Coruscant, I’ll make sure you will.”

******

Ahsoka threw her head back and groaned theatrically. Anakin was too busy inspecting some stupid melons to notice so she did it again, louder this time. “Why am I even here?” she asked the world in general. They were on leave. She could be back at the Temple, sparing with Barriss or catching up with her old crèche-mates. Instead, her master had dragged her to this open-air market to look at vegetables. 

“Oh, come on, Snips, everyone should know how to find good produce.” Anakin paid for his melon. He tossed it once in the air before adding it to his already-bulging satchel. “Now all we need is meat.”

Ahsoka plodded reluctantly after him as he set off in search of a butcher. “Do you even have a place to cook all this stuff?” Droids ran the Temple kitchens. As well as Anakin got on with machines, she couldn’t imagine they’d be alright with him just invading their little kingdom.

“Pad—I mean—Senator Amidala has agreed to let us use her kitchen.”

“Um hm,” Ahsoka said, giving him the side eye. The senator was being awfully generous. Did she have any idea what she was getting into? “Do you even know how to cook?”

Anakin stopped abruptly. Eyes closed, he took a deep breath, clearly seeking patients. “Can you just trust me here, Ahsoka? I’ve been cooking since before you were born. I know what I’m doing.”

He certainly seemed to know his way around Senator Amidala’s kitchen. Ahsoka had never even been in one before, but, when they showed up at the senator’s apartment an hour later, Anakin went straight for the conservator to put the meat away. Then he headed to the sink and started washing the vegetables. Senator Please-call-me-Padmé Amidala followed them in. Her loose gray trousers and blue tunic were the plainest things Ahsoka had ever seen the woman wear, but she still looked impossibly elegant as she took out several knives and cutting boards. 

“Here.” Anakin pulled an onion out of his bag and tossed it to Ahsoka. “Why don’t you get started chopping that?”

“Ugh.” Ahsoka wrinkled her nose. The onion was dirty, with a bottom covered in tiny hairs. “Do I have to?”

Pamdé plucked the onion from her hand and casually nipped off the offending end. “You know,” she said, starting to pull off its papery outer skin to reveal the lighter-colored layers underneath, “when I was little, my sister and I used to help our parents in the kitchen.” She laughed, shaking her head ruefully. “Looking back, I’m not sure how helpful we actually were, but it brought us together as a family.”

Anakin dumped a small mound of freshly-scrubbed daro roots on the second cutting board. “My mom and I would make a game of it,” he said with an almost sad little smile. “Who could peel the most roots? Who could finish their part the fastest?”

Ahsoka looked from her onion to Anakin’s pile of daro roots. She could win this, easy. “Prepare to get your butt kicked,” she said, reclaiming her knife.

“Oh, it’s on,” Anakin said, and off they went. Ahsoka would have won the first round if Padmé hadn’t stopped her butchering the onion and shown her the right way to chop it. As it was, Anakin raced ahead, peeling and chopping the daro roots in record time. She won round two handily, breezing through a fistful of garlic while Anakin drained and chopped the Tatooine black melon. Padmé just laughed at their antics while she trimmed and cubed the meat.

It was all in the pot in almost no time at all. They worked together to clean the kitchen while it cooked. She and Anakin had gotten bits and peels everywhere in their haste, and the black melon had left a sticky gray stain all over the counter. Once they were done with that, they started in on the dishes. Anakin washed, Ahsoka dried, and Padmé put them away. 

Standing between them, Ahsoka felt more content than she had in a long time. Some of that, she knew, was bleed over from Anakin. She had thought he’d been happy on the battlefield and at peace at the Temple, but, looking at him now, she realized she’d never seen him either before. Here, he smiled freely and laughed with Padmé. He even sang as he wiped down the counter. It was like he was he was a whole other person. 

There was no pressure here, Ahsoka realized. This wasn’t a test of a skill she needed to master. No ones’ lives depended on the success of their little project. They were just cooking for themselves for the sheer pleasure of it. Ahsoka couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something just for fun. It felt surprisingly good to be that selfish.

Ahsoka’s stomach was rumbling unhappily by the time the meal was finished cooking. The smell was amazing and it had been taunting her the entire time they were cleaning. Anakin dished it up. It didn’t look like much, but, when she tried it? Home cooked. She got it now. She finally understood. Ahsoka wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but she swore she could taste the love.


End file.
